Mosquitoes are more than just an annoying problem. From the 1800s when British Army Doctor Donald Ross proved malaria was transmitted by mosquitoes, to the present United States outbreak of the mosquito borne West Nile virus, mosquitoes have proven to be a serious problem for both man and animals. Some other diseases transmitted by mosquitoes are dengue, yellow fever, and encephalitis varieties such as Eastern Equine encephalitis, Western Equine encephalitis, La Crosse encephalitis, St. Louis encephalitis, and Japanese encephalitis.
The quest to prevent mosquito transmitted diseases and the general annoyance of being bitten while engaged in outdoor activities has been long and generally unsuccessful. Primary methods of control have been directed at large scale sprayings of indiscriminate poisonous chemicals, attractant traps directed at killing adult mosquitoes, draining of breeding areas such as wetlands, or the application of larvicide chemicals in bodies of water.
Many poisonous chemicals not only kill mosquitoes, but also destroy beneficial insects as well as having detrimental effects on other wildlife such as birds. DDT is still a cause of ecological damage after over thirty years of non-use in the United States. Draining of wetlands has been recognized as destructive to the overall health of our environment and the use of larvicide chemicals in these areas is expensive, requires repeated applications during the breeding season, and could have long term side effects as yet undetermined. Various types of traps have been introduced that attract adult mosquitoes by the use of light, emissions of chemical attractants, carbon dioxide releases, and even vibrating membranes that mimic animal skin. The killing mechanisms used by these traps tend to be electrocuting devices, vacuuming insects into holding bags, introducing the insects to poisonous chemicals, or providing a sticky surface on which the insects become trapped. Many of these traps are expensive to produce and require extensive maintenance for their operation.
All of the above trapping methods result in the unintended destruction of beneficial insects. Current studies indicate existing commercially available traps such as the light attractant and carbon dioxide emitting varieties tend to attract disproportionately greater numbers of mosquitoes to an area than they actually kill. This action creates a negative impact on the intended result of mosquito elimination from a particular location. It has also been shown that the ratio of beneficial insects killed versus mosquitoes by many of these devices is sufficiently high that quite a few of these traps are actually regressive to the environment.
Mosquito populations grow exponentially with one adult female laying from a few to over one hundred eggs every third day of her breeding life. Obviously, the attracting and killing of individual mosquitoes using existing art is, at best, a check-stop measure as the existing art fails to kill mosquitoes in large numbers and break the cycle that allows the exponential growth of the population.